


Insomnia

by CarakinWonder



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Insomnia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-23
Updated: 2013-01-23
Packaged: 2017-11-26 13:08:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/650835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CarakinWonder/pseuds/CarakinWonder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He can't sleep but would he really want to when he gets to notice all these little things, all these precious things about Sherlock?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Insomnia

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt #908 on fuckyeahcharacterdevelopment:
> 
> Half of your ship has a problem with insomnia. What are the tiniest details that they notice at night while the other half sleeps next to them?

Sherlock’s breath hitches when he sleeps. 

It’s nothing big, nothing all that noticeable. Just the smallest of jumps every six minutes and thirty-four seconds. His back moves the smallest of centimeters as his lungs strive just a fraction harder to pull a breath in. Sometimes it scares him when it takes too long, he fears Sherlock’s stopped breathing, but just as he’s about to wake him he hears the intake of breath.

Sherlock’s legs fold when he sleeps.

He’ll fall into bed in a straight line, rolling over onto his side with his legs and chest at an one hundred and eighty degree angle. But just minutes into his slumber his legs will bend, his knees tightly bound, and his shins pressed against his calves. He never looks uncomfortable but it’s odd for him to see Sherlock look so compressed when normally he’s so elongated.

Sherlock has to have one sheet over him when he sleeps. 

He never wakes up when the sheets fall off of his shoulder, his leg, any part of his body. It’s like his limbs just know and take over for him. He grasps out in all directions with fingers and toes until he finds the thin sheet once more and pulls it over the exposed flesh. He finds it funny, always chuckles as quietly as he can when it happens. 

Sherlock writes notes when he sleeps. 

It’s another one of those odd things that Sherlock’s unconscious mind seems to handle for him. His eyes never open but his arms finds the nightstand, the pen and paper he keeps there, and his hand moves quickly. Sometimes it’s just a single word, other times a few phrases. One time he spent several minutes scrawling a paragraph down upon the lines. This is the perturbing thing to him. To watch Sherlock’s body move to satiate a mind that apparently can never stop thinking.

Sherlock holds his hand while he sleeps. 

They don’t go to bed like that. It just like his legs, it just happens and it never moves throughout the night. It’s around a hour, an hour and thirteen minutes if you want to be exact, when Sherlock’s hand reaches out, fingers splayed, searching for his hand. When Sherlock’s fingers find purchase, he never moves his hand any closer, he just lets the searching hand find his on it’s own, Sherlock’s fingers twine tightly into his. They never let go. 

He doesn’t know if he notices. Waking up holding his hand. When he himself awakes, after finally being able to find sleep, Sherlock’s hand is no longer there. Just him, awake, lying next to him. Sometimes he’s already out of bed, dressed. Sherlock never mentions it. He’s glad he can’t sleep. He gets to see Sherlock at his most vulnerable. It’s Sherlock’s greatest show of trust that he is allowed to sleep next to him. 

One day, Sherlock talks out loud when he sleeps. 

Just a single phrase. Spoken just as quick as words scrawled into his notebook. He rolls over and looks at him. Stares, really. Sherlock is not asleep. Those silver blue eyes are open, looking right at the pair of clasped hands lying on the mattress between them.

He repeats it. 

“I love you, John.”

John smiles. “I love you too, Sherlock.” He places a kiss on Sherlock’s forehead, just below the mass of curls. 

Sherlock’s eyes flutter closed and he’s back asleep in mere moments. 

John smiles again. 

—

Sleep is no longer lost to him.


End file.
